Dealing With The Diet Soda Dilemma
Ever since the news broke that your diet soda may be making you fat, pop-addicts have been anguishing over how to get their fizzy fix. (For Mad William it’s all about a caffeine delivery system.)
The good news? There may be a solution, but you won’t find it in the beverage aisle. Marketed by Virgil’s and Zevia, there are diet drinks containing stevia, an herb in the sunflower family. When concentrated, stevia (which is also known as sweetleaf) is 300 times sweeter than sugar, although it can have a licorice-like aftertaste in high concentrations. It has a negative effect on glucose levels, meaning that it can actually enhance glucose tolerance - a fact that’s made it popular among diabetics.
The FDA, however, has refused to approve it as a food additive and requires it be labeled as a “dietary supplement”, a fact that many big-name manufacturers including Coca-Cola are now trying to change. Its been used widely throughout Japan for over 30 years, and to date there are no conclusive reports linking it with health complications. In fact, a 2006 World Health Organization (WHO) study found that it has no carcinogenic effects whatsoever.
So why isn’t it approved for use here in the U.S. where our “war on obesity” would ordinarily prompt us to look at such alternatives? The answer, unfortunately, appears to be purely political. Keep in mind what I said earlier about the fast-tracking of aspartame at the request of Donald Rumsfeld, who was then the COO of the company which discovered and marketed Equal.
Now, note this:
In 1991, at the request of an anonymous complaint, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeled stevia as an “unsafe food additive” and restricted its import. The FDA’s stated reason was “toxicological information on stevia is inadequate to demonstrate its safety.”[33] This ruling was controversial, as stevia proponents pointed out that this designation violated the FDA’s own guidelines under which any natural substance used prior to 1958 with no reported adverse effects should be generally recognized as safe (GRAS)….
The FDA requires proof of safety before recognizing a food additive as safe. A similar burden of proof is required for the FDA to ban a substance or label it unsafe. Nevertheless, stevia remained banned until after the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act forced the FDA in 1995 to revise its stance to permit stevia to be used as a dietary supplement, although not as a food additive — a position that stevia proponents regard as contradictory because it simultaneously labels stevia as safe and unsafe, depending on how it is sold.[35]
While all that wrangling is going on, stevia continues to be more closely regulated by the FDA than most medical supplies. However, since it’s been categorized as a “dietary supplement” you can still buy it… you just have to go to the health food section of your grocery store. (I’ve been buying it for years.) Now, you can also buy stevia-sweetened pop, which means that Mad William can now get his caffeine fix again.
aTags: aspartame, diet soda, metabolic syndrome, stevia
I’ve been drinking Diet Coke since it first came out and it has never made me fat. In fact it has helped me keep my weight down.
Comment by Charlotte on February 13, 2008 at 11:18 amThat’s great, and I think a lot of people are probably in your situation. Still, last week’s scientific reports tying aspartame consumption and metabolic syndrome are worrisome to many.
Comment by Chubby Mommy on February 13, 2008 at 11:22 am*twitching in the corner sobbing, rocking back and forth muttering quietly to unseen gods*
yay
Charlotte: The primary negative with Diet soda for me has really been the fact that I’ve started to feel quite unwell as a direct result of drinking it. Now, that has an awful lot to do with the fact that I had a 4-6 liter a DAY habit of diet dew/diet coke/coke zero, with spikes up to maybe 8 liters. So the news story just provided a nice excuse to say no more.
The missing dollar with my rather profound caffeine intake is that as someone with ADD, caffeine is a duct-tape level self-medication, since finding a decent shrink in nyc is a task akin to finding a respectable lawyer.
Comment by Mad William Flint on February 13, 2008 at 12:36 pmAspartame has a long and well-documented history of causing a wide variety of ailments. Many people experience them and they aren’t troublesome enough to try to attribute it to anything. For others it’s much worse.
I switched to stevia after finding out that even the much touted Splenda can wreak havoc on blood sugar levels. (I’m diabetic). I prefer stevia now because it works better than anything else I’ve tried.
Now if you want a conversation, talk about the negative effects of caffeine. That stuff is dangerous to your health, too. Heck, there’s even a DSM diagnosis for caffeine dependence. I don’t touch any of the stuff any more.
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Comment by jae on February 13, 2008 at 12:38 pmA DSM diagnosis for it? OMG. Are we developing a “syndrome” for everything?
Then again, MWF’s multi-liter daily habit does seem a bit excessive, even to me. I mean, I only drink 4 cups of coffee and a quart of iced tea, therefore I can point fingers.
After that “respectable lawyer” crack, I’m pointing a certain finger right now as a matter of fact.
Comment by Chubby Mommy on February 13, 2008 at 12:57 pmThought that’d getcha >;) Yeah I’m not saying they’re not out there. hell they may even be out there in spades. But you’d never know it in NYC.
Comment by Mad William Flint on February 13, 2008 at 1:02 pmHey I just blogged about this! LOL! It’s a hot topic hey! I like diet soda but I don’t think it’s good for me. Great blog!
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Comment by sommer on February 13, 2008 at 2:26 pmI heard about stevia years ago from a seed catalog. I bought the seeds and planted them. I wasn’t sure whether what came up was stevia or a poisonous (not venomous) weed, so I never used it.
I use Splenda in my coffee but I think I’m switching to sweet tea. Drank my last Diet Coke two days ago. Very sad.
Wonder if I’ll be able to overcome this DC addiction?
Thanks for all this info. Very helpful.
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Comment by Anne on February 15, 2008 at 12:29 pmI’m 10 days out and lemme tell you, turns out it ain’t all about the caffeine, which I’m getting elsewhere. I’m pretty twitchy. I caught myself staring longingly at the cases of diet dew in the supermarket a couple nights ago.
Comment by Mad William Flint on February 15, 2008 at 12:32 pmHuh. If it’s not about the caffeine, I wonder if it’s about the aspartame, then?
Anne, that’s probably a smart move. Maybe next time plant it in a pot indoors? I just buy Stevia plus fiber packets. Yep, that’s right: you can sweeten your tea and bump up your fiber intake at the same time!
Comment by Chubby Mommy on February 15, 2008 at 12:41 pmI don’t know. It might be, but I sorta doubt it.
I miss drinking something that has, for lack of a better word, some substance to it. Water just doesn’t cut it, though I sit with a full glass of icewater and nip at it all day.
Popping open a diet soda and slurping it down in short order is just so tremendously satisfying.
Thinking it might be the carbonation I tried flavored seltzers and it’s just not there.
If only I didn’t find coffee so repulsive.
Comment by Mad William Flint on February 15, 2008 at 12:45 pmOne word: tea.
Comment by Chubby Mommy on February 15, 2008 at 12:50 pmgak. Yeah, I may be stuck with tea.
Just tastes like water filtered through dried leaves to me.
Comment by Mad William Flint on February 15, 2008 at 12:57 pmNo, no, no. You’re drinking the wrong tea!
Want something spicy yet smooth? Try Earl Gray.
How about something with zing? Drink chai.
In the mood for something nutty? My favorite genmaicha will answer the mail.
There’s even tea flavored with barley that’ll remind you a bit of beer.
But whatever you do, skip that Lipton crap.
Comment by Chubby Mommy on February 15, 2008 at 1:04 pmSweetener with fiber? I don’t know, Kate. Don’t like to chew my tea.
And as for tea, the overpriced yet delicious Tazo green tea with spearmint and lemon grass is awesome. You can buy it bottled or brew it yourself.
Lipton’s good if you brew it strong, sweeten it to within a few hairs of diabetic coma and ice it. Add lemon. And yes, that’s sweetened with sugar. Sugar doesn’t count in iced tea when you get it in a restaurant.
Anne’s last blog post..News I Can’t Use
Comment by Anne on February 17, 2008 at 3:55 pmNo, no. You don’t have to chew your tea. Honest! I can’t tell the difference, texture or taste-wise and I’m pretty picky about that stuff.
I do love Tazo, though you’re right about it being expensive. The one you’re talking about, Tazo Zen tea, isn’t too bad at Amazon — $5.94 for a box of 24. It’s $6.75 at my local grocery store. Yikes!
Can’t agree with you on Lipton, though. That stuff never tastes right to me.
Comment by Chubby Mommy on February 17, 2008 at 4:17 pm
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